Udit: We matched at 8:00am that unusual Sunday morning when I was actually up early! What started off as my worst opening led to a very dense conversation about cinema! We kept sending super-huge bubbles of text messages and my phone kept vibrating all morning till 1pm! Having quickly realized the predicament of trying to contain this conversation within texts, we immediately decided to pre-pone our date by a week! The events that followed would put any classical romantic to shame: I stopped at Tops, grabbed chocolates, dialed up the volume and ignored Taylor trying to convince me that “[she] could show [me] incredible things”; I knew what waited me in Tully NY was more incredible than the word could justify! Tasha Beauchesne was so beautiful that I was immediately blown away (years of Bollywood and idolizing Dr Shah Rukh Khan immediately fell short) ! I struggled really hard trying to keep up with this English major who quoted Shakespeare at will and read like 52 books a year! I was convinced I messed it up when I mentioned “Severus Snape is my favorite” and she went “Really (rolling eyes)”…. Now looking back at it, maybe my quick retort to follow that eye-roll up with “Always (clenching my teeth hard)” helped my case a ton! Tasha: Udit’s favorite form of punctuation is the exclamation mark, which I learned very quickly the Sunday we started texting. So, when we decided to meet in person, I was expecting a very bubbly, over-the-top personality. Instead, when I (crookedly) parked my car by the roadside and walked up to the restaurant, I was greeted by a very calm, level-headed guy who held out a little bag of chocolates to me, which was already a point in his favor. My nerves grew as we sat at a table and started chatting. He was so well-spoken, his voice smooth and even, cracking jokes easily and catching my little remarks in return. He was so mature and calm, I thought. But when the waitress brought the bruschetta to the table, I saw him reach out with one hand to spoon some topping onto the toast, and his hand was shaking so hard the spoon was lightly clanging against the bowl. So, I thought, I guess I’m not the only one who’s nervous. We spent most of the rest of the day together, taking a walk around a nearby park. Our conversation flowed easily and everything I learned about him only made me more intrigued. We grew up in totally different countries, with different cultures and foods, but we had so much in our common. When we finally walked back to the parking lot, the chocolates he had given me were half-melted in the front seat of my car. I made him eat one with me, and we got melted chocolate all over our hands and faces. When I got home that evening, Udit had sent me a very earnest, sweet text about how much he enjoyed the date, complete with about a million exclamation marks. I smiled and stuck the chocolates in the fridge to firm up, wondering how such a guy’s texting personality could be so different from his real-life one. The solution, I figured, was to just keep seeing the real-life one more.